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This isn't about any one industry failing, it's about a system designed to funnel value upwards while pretending the rest of us are just not hustling hard enoug
by TimByte 1y ago
This isn't about any one industry failing, it's about a system designed to funnel value upwards while pretending the rest of us are just not hustling hard enough
- monero-xmr 1y agoI would argue the system is designed for efficiency. Economic solutions to this problem are about introducing legally-mandated inefficiencies, like limiting competition or artificially increasing labor costs
- westmeal 1y agoEfficiency for extracting money from poor people to mega corporations? Seems to me there isn't really a lot of competition left since theres a handful of main players that just buy out smaller competitors.
- bluGill 1y agoThe poor are richer than ever under the system. They have clean running water and not just light but televisions.
- lapcat 1y ago> They have clean running water They actually don't. Water is contaminated at various levels in many places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
- bluGill 1y agoNothing to do with rich or poor - they share the same water.
- lapcat 1y agoThe rich tend to avoid living in poor communities.
- bluGill 1y agoWater systems generelly cover the whole city, often more than one city in a MSA, not just a community. There are community water systems but most are bigger.
- kyo_gisors 1y ago[flagged]
- astrange 1y agoFlint's water has been fixed for more than five years now.
- RobotToaster 1y agoMost of them don't even own homes.
- bluGill 1y agothere are rich who don't own their own homes either. Often renting is the choice a mythical rational ecconomic actor would choose.
- plemer 1y agoBut minimal determination over their own lives. Thank God for cheap LCDs, though.
- olddustytrail 1y agoThey have clean running water because of the ordinary people who work to provide it and maintain the pipes. They have light and television because of the ordinary working people who work at and maintain electricity plants and design, sell, assemble electrical products. These things exist despite the billionaire leeches not because of them.
- ZoomZoomZoom 1y ago> like limiting competition I didn't get your point, but we certainly need more competition, not less.
- skybrian 1y agoI think “design” is the wrong word. Many systems are unjust by default, and that’s certainly true of hit-driven businesses like music. Justice doesn’t happen unless people make it happen, and often, most people don’t care. For example, lotteries are inherently unjust, making random people wealthy for no reason, and hardly anyone cares. They just hope to win themselves. Taylor Swift fans don’t care that she makes far more money than other talented musicians who languish in obscurity. They’re going to keep giving her more money. If you told them they shouldn’t because it perpetuates inequality, they wouldn’t get it.
- bigfishrunning 1y agoHow are lotteries inherently unjust? A bad idea maybe, but I see no reason that people shouldn't be allowed to gamble on a die roll or whatever...
- skybrian 1y agoDo you think inequality is unjust? They increase inequality, and there’s no possible argument that a lottery winner did anything to deserve their good fortune. It’s the opposite effect of insurance, where society works to undo the results of bad luck.
- giantg2 1y agoMaybe that's what insurance should be. It doesn't seem to be that way now. People build large fancy homes or fancy cars and then off load the risk to insurance. The problem with this is that it tends to increase costs for other in the pool and disincentivizes risk mitigating behavior. If I know that insurance will pay out for my car, then I can drive more aggressively. I want my home to look fancy and be huge instead of being built to survive local natural disasters, but that preference might change if I didn't have insurance.
- wavemode 1y agoI get what you're saying, though it is nuanced. For example, no insurance company in its right mind would insure a home in San Francisco against earthquake damage if the home isn't actually built to code in terms of its ability to withstand earthquakes. Similarly, car insurance companies charge way higher premiums for drivers with a history of accidents and tickets for reckless driving. My point being, yes insurance obviously decreases risk for owners, but since insurance companies are the ones inheriting that financial risk, they also inherit the incentive to ensure that things are being done the right way.
- xhkkffbf 1y ago> It’s easier than ever to make music, and harder than ever to make a living from it The subhed spells it out. It's a supply and demand world. If it's easy to do things, the supply increases. It's that simple. That's not to say that the larger system isn't doing what you claim. Just that music is just too easy to make to be valuable.
- sandworm101 1y agoI'd describe it more as a system designed to enable capital to better purchase assets built by persons without. Taylor Swift sold her early work to someone with capital, who then owned her as the labels owned the artists in the article. The answer might be then to disallow capital from buying artists so easily. One option, which Canada does partially have on the books, is a concept of non-divestible "artist rights". If fully implemented, Taylor Swift would be incapable of selling away her works fully, always retaining a degree of control. This would no doubt reduce the value of art but would keep control in the hands of artists. So when the artist feels dissatisfied, they can always walk away no matter what contact they have signed earlier in their career. NerdCubed did a video recently about similar experiences when publishing a book.